"To her—to her must you speak that way?"
"To everybody! I want no love, I want no friendship which gets between my feet and holds me back."
"Bravo! You're a hero! Go say all this to Sashenka. You should have said that to her."
"You have! The way you spoke to your mother? You have not! To her you spoke softly; you spoke gently and tenderly to her. I did not hear you, but I know it! But you trot out your heroism before your mother. Of course! Your heroism is not worth a cent."
Vlasova began to wipe the tears from her face in haste. For fear a serious quarrel should break out between the Little Russian and Pavel, she quickly opened the door and entered the kitchen, shivering, terrified, and distressed.
"Ugh! How cold! And it's spring, too!"
She aimlessly removed various things in the kitchen from one place to another, and in order to drown the subdued voices in the room, she continued in a louder voice:
"Everything's changed. People have grown hotter and the weather colder. At this time of the year it used to get warm; the sky would clear, and the sun would be out."
Silence ensued in the room. The mother stood waiting in the middle of the floor.